Parker v. State

• Decision Date: 29 April 1968
• Docket Number: No. 184,184
• Citation: 241 A.2d 185,4 Md.App. 62
• Parties: Jackie C. PARKER v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 62

4 Md.App. 62

241 A.2d 185

Jackie C. PARKER v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 184.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 29, 1968.

D. William Simpson, Salisbury, for appellant.

Alfred J. O'Ferrall, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Alfred T. Truitt, Jr., and William B. Yates, II, State's Atty., for Wicomico County and State's Atty., for Dorchester County, respectively, on brief, for appellee.

Before MURPHY, C. J., and ANDERSON, MORTON, and ORTH, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

Appellant was convicted on May 16, 1967 by a jury in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County of first degree murder and robbery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder charge and to a twenty-year term under the robbery conviction, to run consecutively with the life sentence. His primary contention on this appeal is that the court erred in instructing the jury on the issue of burden of proof as to appellant's defense of insanity.

There was evidence adduced at the trial tending to show that at approximately 9:00 p. m. on December 30, 1966, appellant entered the grocery store of William Arnie in Cambridge and asked Arnie, whom he knew, to go to the back of the store with him; that a shot went off and Arnie called to his son, 'run Johnnie, run'; that a second shot went off and Johnnie ran from the store to call the police; that Arnie came out of the store holding his stomach and stated to a witness, 'Oh my God, Wayne, the Parker boy shot me'; that appellant then ran out of the store with a gun in his hand and fled in the direction of his apartment; that shortly thereafter two officers of the Cambridge Police Department went to appellant's apartment and found him lying across a bed; and that the officers discovered a gun in a hamper in the apartment. It was further established that the bullets found in the grocery store were fired by the gun found in appellant's apartment, that approximately $900.00 was found missing from the store safe, as well as $720.00 which Arnie had been holding for a friend, and that $1,598.00 was found in appellant's apartment.

There was conflicting evidence as to whether appellant was drunk at the time of the crime, the arresting officers testifying that he was not drunk when they arrested him shortly after the crime, and appellant, testifying on his own behalf, stating that he was so drunk that he could not remember any of the events of the evening preceding his arrest. There was other evidence showing that appellant consumed a large quantity of alcoholic beverages on the day of the crime, that he had been a heavy drinker since he was thirteen years of age, that once he started drinking, he usually wouldn't stop until he 'passed out,' and that he had no memory of what occurred after he became drunk. There was evidence also showing that appellant was twenty-five years of age at the time of the crime and of low mentality.

Appellant's principal defense was that he was insane at the time of the commission of the crime. ¹ To establish this defense, he produced Dr. Talmage Reeves, a psychiatrist, who testified that he examined appellant on May 1, 1967, for approximately one hour and that on the basis of this examination, he concluded that at the time of the commission of the crime, appellant had a 'character behavior disorder' and, in addition, 'an acute brain syndrome secondary to alcohol ingestion-severe alcohol ingestion'; that the acute brain syndrome was due to ingestion of alcohol; that it was acute and irreversible in appellant's case because of its long existence; that as a result thereof, appellant had impaired comprehension and judgment, including impaired memory; that such impairment was to the extent 'that he was unable to comprehend that if he did something which was violent, what the consequences may do-be'; that he could not say specifically 'yes or no' whether appellant 'was of such mental capacity and reason so as not to be able to properly distinguish between right and wrong and to know the nature and consequences of his acts as applied to himself,' but that 'because of comprehension and judgment impairment, there was some difficulty'; that 'comprehension and judgment were somewhat impaired to the point that he was unable to think clearly and to know the nature of what he was doing and the consequences,' but that he could not say that appellant 'absolutely did not know right from wrong.'

On the basis of this testimony, the court ruled the defense had sufficiently rebutted the presumption of sanity to permit the issue to go to the jury. Thereafter, the State called Ido Adamo, a psychiatrist at Clifton Perkins State Hospital. He testified that he had examined appellant and diagnosed his condition as a character disorder with chronic alcoholism. Dr. Adamo testified that appellant had no psychosis; that 'he certainly doesn't suffer from any disease which could have caused him to be in such a state of mind to be unable to know right from wrong'; that 'if he was intoxicated, that's a different story'; and that appellant was 'probably responsible' for his action at the time of the commission of the crime.

The court, after instructing the jury on the standard to determine whether a person is sane or insane under the M'Naghten test, instructed the jury on the issue of burden of proof as follows:

'* * * the burden of proof is upon the defendant to establish insanity by a preponderance of the evidence; but then the burden then shifts to the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was sane.'

That this instruction was erroneous is entirely clear. In Bradford v. State, 234 Md. 505, 200 A.2d 150, 17 A.L.R.3d 134, decided May 4, 1964, and in Fowler v. State, 237 Md. 508, 206 A.2d 802, decided February 11, 1965,...